Things could be better

But they also could be worse. Let's all just be optimistic, ok?

Pakistan avoided the follow-on today by a tenacious 73 by Shoaib Malik. Well done to him, finally a captain that's leading by example. Ok, maybe I'm being a bit unfair to Inzi, but I have long-term memory issues and the ICC World Cup 2007 still haunts me. Pakistan only finished with 291 however and South Africa start batting again.

Though the team seems to be more awake today, I don't know if it's enough. Maybe Pakistan have resigned themselves to losing this test, but they'll be the wiser team for the next one.

South Africa finished today with 76/3, a much better performance by Pakistan as far as bowling went and a few more wickets might restrict South Africa to a get-able total, even though they lead by 235 runs at the moment. I'm not going to write Pakistan off, I think they have a lot of potential and with some smarter shots and a bit of luck, there's still a chance we can win this.

Oh, and clever monkey's we are, we gave Mark Boucher the dismissals he needed to beat Ian Healy's record of most dismissals in Test cricket. Hopefully, that's the only record he'll be making this series.

Finally, Inzimam Ul Haq may or may not play in the second test. Inzi has supposedly reached an agreement with the PCB allowing him to play in the test and have a shot at beating Javed Miandad's Test runs, needing just 20 to beat Javed's 8832. But then newspapers are also reporting his retirement, so believe what you will.

Short post today, because I have a ton of work to do and my stomach is begging for food. Shut up you, you can't eat until sunset! Cheers all!